A Dinner Of Herbs (9 page)

of it because if ever there was a lazy beggar in this world, it’s him lettin’ his ground go rank.

Still, I shouldn’t grumble about that, for he’s given me the best supply of dead nettles from round about

for many a year. It’s a good job he’s a good mill worker or else he would have been put out a time ago.

“

Mary Ellen, taking up the basket, grinned now as she said, “Oh, I’ll collect the dead nettle for you if

nothin’ else, ‘cos I love those sweets you make with the flowers, and me da loves the

potion.”

“He’s not the only one. But I can tell you something for nothing, Mary Ellen, anybody

who wants that

this winter is gona pay for it. I’m givin’ no more away, except to your ma and da of

course. The neck of

some people walking miles to ask me for a pick-me-up, and the most they leave’ll be a

penny, when the

sugar syrup costs twice as much.

Oh, away with you an let’s stop yammerin’ or else you’ll never get back home in time for supper. And

then what’ll happen? Your da will be along here goin’ for me, demanding to know why

I’ve kept you. “

“He’d never go for you, Kate. No, he wouldn’t. And he knows I’m all right when I’m

here.

Anyway’—she sighed “ tis me last day. “

“Last day indeed! Go on. get yourself away. You talk like an ancient;

your head’s too old for your body. Always has been, miss. Go on with you. “ She shooed her out of

the room as she did the chickens, wafting her apron at her, and Mary Ellen, joining in the charade, made

cackling sounds as she ran down the garden and through the gate and into the field.

But her step had slowed to a walk before she reached the place where the ride divided, one twisting

track rising towards the quarry, the other also going steeply uphill but skirting the wood that had

thickened in all ways during the past five years; not only had the saplings grown but the brushwood had

taken over densely in parts.

Knowing that she would take the bottom road back by Stubbs’s cottage in order to gather the dead

nettle, she decided to look at the bog first to see if there were any late cowslips still there.

She dismissed

the thought that her father had forbidden her to go near the bog ever again since that time she fell in and

was stuck up to her knees. It was a good job, he had said as he lathered her ears, that she had stayed

near the edge, for a foot further in she would likely have been sucked under. This had happened when

she was seven years old. But at times he would still warn her, “If you are going up the ride, madam,

keep clear of the bog.” But that was whenever they’d had a wet summer. This summer

had been

scorching hot; the streams had dried up; even the dam down at Langley was well below

its bank.

She now pushed her way through some low shrub, stepped over a fallen branch, then

came onto a rough

pathway that had at one time bordered the ride, and there to the left other was the dried up bog, the

whole of which was not more than twelve feet across. What vegetation grew about it was now shrivelled

up; the mud was cracked in parts and to some depth, showing crevices inches across, and the whole

expanse of mud had dropped to almost a foot below the rim, and in one glance she saw

that there was

no possibility of any cowslips being found there.

But what did draw her attention was something that looked like a handle sticking out of a crevice in the

mud just below where she was standing.

Being of a curious nature, she responded by immediately kneeling down on the hard

crusty earth and,

bending over, she touched the half circle. It felt hard like wood. In the ordinary way she would have

taken it for a fallen branch, except that part of it was showing black where the dried mud had dropped

from it and around this black part was a ring of brass or steel or some metal.

Gripping the handle now, she went to pull it up because she guessed there was something attached to it.

What her mind didn’t say, only told her there was something below the mud.

Forgetting for the moment she was still in her Sunday clothes, she lay flat on the bank now and,

extending her two hands and taking a firm grip on the handle, she endeavoured to move it backwards

and forwards, with the pleasing result that the dried mud at each side gave way and there came to her

ears a small sucking sound. Her efforts now became really vigorous, and when more of

the dried mud

fell away and exposed the thing that the handle was attached to, she stopped and gazed down in

amazement at the top of a bag. Immediately, she recognized the type of bag because it

was the same

shape as the one old Doctor Cranwell carried when he went to the mine or the mill when there was an

accident.

Frantically now, her grip tight on the handle, she again resumed a rocking motion. Of a sudden there

was a sound like a cork leaving a bottle and her elbows gave way and her face almost hit the edge of the

bank, and there at the end of her extended arms she saw she was holding what she

imagined to be an

exact replica of the doctor’s bag, except perhaps it might be a little bigger.

Having pulled it onto the bank, she noticed that the bottom of the bag was covered with wet mud, and

she thought, it must be still soggy underneath and you could still get stuck; me da was right. But what

was in this;

bag?

She got to her feet, but when she went to lift it she found;

it was almost too heavy for her, being still caked with mud’j she imagined, and so,

picking up some dried

grass from’ nearby and a piece of wood, she proceeded to scrape the bag as clean as she could. ^ Her

efforts showed that it was a leather bag which had become as hard as iron with being in the mud. She

also saw that it had a lock going through the flap on one side of it. There was no key in the lock, so she

couldn’t find out what was inside. But there was something inside it and it was movable because when

she pushed the bag onto its side she heard that something move, and when, with an effort, she turned it

completely upside down, whatever was inside fell to the top which was now the bottom

of the bag.

Still kneeling, she stared down at it as if waiting for some directions. At one point she thought, I’ll go

and tell Kate. But Kate couldn’t come up here. And then, she couldn’t go and tell her da because no

matter what was in the—bag he would skin her alive for having disobeyed him,

especially for her daring

to come near the bog, even if it was dried up. But of course he was right, it was never dried up at the

bottom, as the bag had proved. And another thing, she was still in her Sunday clothes.

As she continued to stare at it her eyes narrowed as she imagined she saw a letter on the side of the

bag. To prove whether it was imagination or not she spat two or three times on the spot, then rubbed it

with some more dried grass, and her efforts proved that it wasn’t her imagination because she was

looking at the letter “B’.

Further spitting and further rubbing disclosed another three letters to make up the word,

“Bank’. And

now as if a veil had been lifted from her eyes and a door opened in her mind, she saw her father standing

in the kitchen after he had returned from a visit to Hexham market and he was saying to her mother, “

That Hal will do someone a damage one of these days, for if I hadn’t pulled him free, it would be him that

would have got the damage the day, for he was tackling three of ‘em.

Apparently they had jibed at him about his father stealing the payroll and likely now

living in luxury in a

foreign country on the money. 1 brought him back on the cart with me and dropped him

off near the

road. And you. know something, he’s a strange lad, for he was about to walk away when

he turned

and, looking at me, he said in a voice like an old man instead of a lad, “My dad never did that, he

wouldn’t.”

She looked down at the bag, and now there was no doubt in her mind as to what was in

the bag. But

what would she do with it? Money always caused trouble. Her da was always saying that, money

always caused trouble. If Roddy was here he would know what to do with it. But then, if Roddy was

here, Hal would be with him, and if Hal got his hands on this bag she knew exactly what would happen:

he wouldn’t take it to the authorities like her da or Roddy might, for he would think it was his ‘cos his da

had suffered for it no matter where he was across the world, ‘cos he had gone across the world. She

had heard the tale so often about his horse having been found far away in Newcastle,

which could only

mean he had gone on a ship. Yet, why hadn’t he taken the bag with him?

Her mind gave her no answer, except to ask what was she going to do with it. Throw it

back into the

mud? No, no. That idea was immediately rejected. Anyway it wouldn’t sink now; and

what was more

she hadn’t much time. Whatever she was going to do with it she must do it straightaway because she had

to gather the herbs and then get home afore her da got back.

There was that hole on the other side of the quarry that she had discovered when she was blaeberrying

last year. By, she had got a gliffthat day. The blaeberry bushes were thick there and she had scrambled

up a mound to get to the big berries, and her scrambling must have loosened something

because she had

suddenly to hang on and then the earth had given way beneath her. She didn’t fall far, but her feet

seemed to be entangled with large stones like in the quarry.

Presently, she realized she had fallen into a kind of tunnel and it wasn’t a natural place, for it had been

stone built. ) Perhaps, she thought, it was one of the tunnels the men had;

been making to take the gas from the smelt mill and hadn’t gone on with it. Anyway, it was dry inside

and she sat in the| opening until she got her breath back and then she climbed up onto the bank and was

surprised that she had really onljl slid a short distance because when her feet had given way she had

imagined she had fallen from heaven.

So that was it. She could stick the bag in there for the time being until she could think what to do with

it. But could she carry it?

Slinging the basket onto her shoulder, first she stood up, then bent and gripped the bag with both hands

and found that yes, holding it like that, she could carry it. It was hard like a piece of wood. But she

hadn’t taken more than two or three steps when she asked herself what would happen if

she met

someone Well, she needn’t meet anybody for she knew her way through the thicket and

from where she

was now it would only take her a few minutes to be at the end of the quarry. Long before she reached

the sloping bank where the blaeberries grew, she was panting. The way seemed longer

than she had

imagined. When she at last stopped she dropped the bag onto the ground, then took the

basket from her

shoulder and pushed it into the bushes. She took up the bag again and foraged forwards for the tunnel.

The bushes had grown amazingly and it was only her feet that told her she had reached

the entrance,

because now there was a bush hanging over it and as she bent down a twig caught her

bonnet and pulled

the straps tight around her chin and she whimpered aloud, “Oh, dear me.

Oh, dear me. “

Pushing the bush aside, she crawled into the aperture, the bag behind her. She had to

blink a number of

times to accustom herself to the dim light coming through the bush. Kneeling down, she crawled some

little distance until she could see no further, and there she left the bag, but not before she had patted it

and then asked herself why she had done so.

Outside and having retrieved her basket, she vigorously dusted her dress down, saying

the while, “Eeh!

it’s a good job it’s a fawny colour so the marks don’t show.” This done, she made her

way back to the

wood and towards the field where she would find long wort all the time wondering to

whom she could

talk about the money. Kate seemed the safest person. But yet again a door opened in her mind and she

recalled an incident that had happened a long, long time ago when she was small. She had seen a man in

the wood picking herbs and she had talked to him because she liked talking to people,

and when she told

Kate about the man, Kate had looked at her and said, “Which man goes round here

picking herbs? Did

you know him?” And she had answered, “No, but he was a little man with a funny hand.”

And at this

point Kate had become quite excited and she had put her shawl on and gone out, and had told her to go

home. Later, Kate told her to look out for the man and to tell her when she saw him. But she hadn’t

seen him again.

Now why should she think of that? She didn’t know, but somehow it ‘prevented her from

choosing

Kate as the recipient other secret. The only one she could really tell was Roddy, and she must get him

by himself sometime tonight, and then she would know what to do with the bag.

Meanwhile Roddy and Hal were sitting on a bank above the smelt mill.

Being Sunday, there was little activity around the works.

Hal, sitting slightly behind and to the left of Roddy, had^ watched him in silence for sometime before he